Blizzard Entertainment is such a well covered company that it’s difficult for the developer to really surprise the video game community. They maintain the desire to surprise us, but the execution has proven difficult for any product of a live universe, StarCraft, World of Warcraft et cetera. The PAX West Patch 7.1 panel certainly delivered with the announcement of an all-new Companion App for World of Warcraft: Legion. No leaks, datamining or anything of the sort. I certainly had no idea it was coming, and, as you can imagine, I follow the news pretty closely.
You may think the fact that the team had sat and discussed nothing but Legion for a solid hour would make an interview with the squad a bit redundant. That’s true. We gave them a few moments to rehash some of the panel details as we peppered them with questions. Then we opened it up to WoW and game design at large. Our lore query should settle the long-standing debate between myself and braybray over the timelines of Warcraft. No need for referencing months or year’s old explanations. Lastly, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to ask three of Legion’s chief architects what they love most about the product.
Awesome interview dude. Wish I could have been there. I’m almost positive I met Cory Stockton in person at Blizzard in 2013, as he looks really freakin’ familiar. I think my buddy Matt (the Asian guy) held his Arthas sword. lol.
A comment on the lore…
I really am not sure nor do I particularly like the direction I’m assuming they’re taking the lore in Warcraft. I feel like WoW itself has progressed too “quickly”, now granted it IS a 12 year old game (itself in a universe over 20 years in the making), I’m just not liking the fact that we’re basically knocking off aspects, gods, titans, major lore players, etc. I just wish they’d slow it down.
We’re pretty much at a point in Warcraft story where they basically are entering uncharted territory. Nearly ever major arc in current content was started or described to some degree during Warcraft 3, with a whole hell of a lot of lore drawn from the War of the Ancients book series (which admittedly did come out after WoW), but WOTA was itself still based on things that were described or talked about in the previous games.
What’s beyond Sargeras? What’s beyond the Tomb? Are we just going to Argus? It kind of bothers me that we’re starting to get a little too “spacey” for the Warcraft universe, and I think that story is ultimately going to really start to kill the game. WE TAKE A LEGION SPACE SHIP AND CRASH IT INTO ARGUS EXODAR-STYLE!